Chaplin Marine Instruments (CMI) maintains integrated development environments (IDE) for both Persistor Instrument's CF1 computer module (Metrowerks CodeWarrior 9.3) and Microchip Technology's PIC family of microcontrollers (MPLAB 7.0). CMI uses p-cad 2000 as its printed circuit design environment.

Gerry Chaplin was a beta site developer during the introduction (1998) of the CF1 computer module (shown at left), manufactured by Persistor Instruments of Bourne, MA USA. CMI has since upgraded to the CF2 module. This powerful device has become the engine-of-choice for CMI and other oceanographic instrumentation designers. It's versatile, low-power operating modes, high-speed, 32-bit processing power (Motorola 68332), and MS-DOS-like flash memory file management system make the CF1 an ideal candidate for battery-powered, data logger designs. The extensive documentation and the BIOS routines library provided by Persistor Instruments are important considerations in keeping development time to a minimum. CMI, designing instruments around the CF1 & CF2, has expanded the ANSI C library with routines particularly suited for scheduled, periodic measurements with low power sleep modes, i.e., multi-input, micro-power data logger designs.

The Microchip Technology PIC family of microcontrollers complements CFx designs by integrating special functions without compromising space or energy budget. Industry support for PIC processors is extensive, offering a wide variety of controllers and program libraries. For example, CMI has developed a library for a PIC 16 controller that supports an underwater acoustic command decoder. To find out more about PIC processors, visit the Microchip Technologies web site: http://www.microchip.com